Contentions

The New York Times is incapable of punishing its “star” columnists, no matter what the offense. Maureen Dowd was caught plagiarizing and was allowed to skate by with a lame excuse and no real confession of guilt. Paul Krugman in a column last week wrote, “By all means, hang Senator Joe Lieberman in effigy.” Today, in a pathetic parenthetical, he writes: (“Management wants me to make it clear that in my last column I wasn’t endorsing inappropriate threats against Mr. Lieberman.”) A more insincere apology would be hard to find.

Let’s imagine — for we will have to, barring a spasm of transparency from public editor Clark Hoyt — that the Times management received one or more complaints about Krugman’s disgusting remark. What would they have said? “Well, no, we don’t actually support hanging in effigy U.S. senators.” If pressed as to their editorial judgment, would they have lamely acknowledged, “Er, yes, had anyone used that phrase with the regard to the president, we would have caught it and squelched it”? The mind reels.

What is clear is that for all the Times’s snooty condescension about the blogosphere, the editorial pages of the Gray Lady are no better than the average netroot blog. Journalistic ethics? Puh-leez! Common decency? Fuggedaboutit!